In the quest for natural beauty and overall well-being, facial cupping has emerged as a popular rejuvenating technique. This ancient practice, rooted in traditional Chinese medicine, involves using small suction cups on the face to stimulate blood flow, lift facial tissues, and promote skin health. Facial cupping enhances blood circulation to the skin’s surface, delivering oxygen and essential nutrients, resulting in a healthy and radiant complexion. The gentle suction promotes lymphatic drainage, helping to eliminate toxins and reduce fluid retention.
What is Facial Cupping?
Facial cupping is an ancient holistic therapy that originated in China. It involves placing small suction cups on the face to stimulate blood flow, lift facial tissues, and promote overall skin health. The cups create a gentle vacuum that lifts the skin and underlying tissues, encouraging lymphatic drainage and increased circulation.
Facial cupping gently pulls the skin away from deeper layers of the tissues of your skin, creating an inflammatory response. This, in turn, increases blood circulation and stimulates the cells responsible for collagen production, healing, and regeneration. This treatment specifically targets fine lines, wrinkles, loss of elasticity, puffiness/edema, dull and lackluster skin. Cupping pulls the skin away from the deeper layers of skin tissue, resulting in an inflammatory response. This helps with drawing out impurities from the skin tissues and drains them into the lymph nodes where bacteria, viruses, and other harmful microorganisms are destroyed.
Benefits of Facial Cupping
Facial cupping offers a range of potential benefits, including:
Enhanced Blood Circulation: Facial cupping enhances blood circulation to the skin’s surface, delivering oxygen and essential nutrients. This increased blood flow promotes a healthy complexion and contributes to a natural, radiant glow. The increased blood circulation comes up to the skin, it increases the fibroblast activity, and this will stimulate collagen and elastin production.
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Improved Lymphatic Drainage: The gentle suction promotes lymphatic drainage, helping to eliminate toxins and reduce fluid retention. Cupping helps to move stagnant lymph out of the face, which can take toxins with it and helps with inflammation on the exterior of the skin.
Muscle Relaxation: Facial cupping can help alleviate tension in facial muscles by relaxing and releasing tightness. As the cups glide across the skin, they stimulate acupressure points, promoting relaxation and reducing the overall stress held in facial muscles. It also relaxes any tight fascial tissue that is on the face. Facial cupping and gua can release nerves that have become entrapped on the face.
Stimulation of Collagen and Elastin Production: The suction created during facial cupping stimulates collagen and elastin production, essential proteins that maintain the skin’s firmness and elasticity.
Reduction of Fine Lines and Wrinkles: The combination of increased blood circulation, lymphatic drainage, and collagen stimulation makes facial cupping an effective natural treatment for fine lines and wrinkles.
Enhanced Product Absorption: By promoting blood circulation and opening the pores, facial cupping enhances the absorption of skincare products.
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Stress Relief: Beyond its cosmetic benefits, facial cupping offers holistic stress relief. The rhythmic gliding of the cups across the face can induce a sense of relaxation, reducing overall tension, and promoting mental well-being.
Facial Cupping Techniques
During a facial cupping session, the cups are never static, meaning they are never parked in one place.
Lymphatic Drainage: Suction and release down the neck. When you get to around kidney 27 under the clavicle, then you’re gonna drag the cup. It is important to always work on one side of the face and then the other when doing facial cupping.
Facial Movement: Suction and then drag the cup over different parts of the face that have been affected by paralysis. If the person had Bell’s Palsy, you would be working the cups along the stomach line to help with any facial movement in those areas.
Mouth Disharmony: For patients who have any sort of disharmony around the mouth, whether it’s neuropathy or any sort of tension in the mouth, and this can help to release.
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Orbital Rim: Gently working around the orbital rim in order to bring energy into this part of the face.
Contraindications and Precautions
While facial cupping offers numerous benefits, it's essential to be aware of its contraindications and precautions:
- High Blood Pressure: Be cautious if your patient has very high blood pressure that’s not controlled well.
- Anticoagulants: If the person is on anticoagulants or just has a condition where they bruise easily, this could be an issue.
- Migraines: If the patient suffers from frequent severe migraines, then facial cupping can be an issue.
- Pustule Acne: You don’t wanna be running the cups over that.
- Facial Fillers/Botox: Never do cupping over an area where there’s been a neurotoxin like Botox ’cause it can make it wear off or move it.
- Facial Herpes: Be cautious if your patient has facial herpes.
- Deep Vein Thrombosis, Open Wounds, or Bone Fractures: Cupping should not be applied directly over nerves, arteries, veins, varicose veins, skin lesions, body orifices, lymph nodes, eyes, or areas of skin that are inflamed.
- Skin Conditions: If the skin is excoriated, oozing, or infected, it is advisable to refrain from cupping, as it may result in an elevation of D-dimer levels, thereby suggesting the possibility of blood coagulation or other adverse effects.
- Medical Conditions: Individuals with cancer, organ failure, hemophilia or any similar blood disorder, and any implanted electronic medical device, such as a pacemaker, are contraindicated for cupping therapy.
- Pregnancy and Menstruation: Cupping therapy is not recommended for geriatric, pediatric, pregnant, or menstruating patients.
- Elevated Serum Cholesterol: Furthermore, patients with elevated serum cholesterol are at higher risk of developing cardiovascular events related to cupping therapy.
- Recent dermaplane treatments: Since this treatment exfoliates the skin there will not be enough skin to pull safely.
- Recent botox or filler injections.
- Untreated acne and rosacea.
- Recent treatments of Accutane: This treatment for acne reduces the amount of sebum upon the skin and is quite powerful.
- Skin treated with Retin-A: This treatment for acne significantly thins the skin.
- Clients with challenged skin biofilm, which occurs with clients who are prone to frequent skin infection.
- Recent cosmetic procedures such as lifts, enhancements, liposuction and plastic surgeries.
It’s important to note that facial cupping differs from body cupping. Our intention with facial treatments is not to leave any markings on the skin. During your session, the cups are never static, meaning they are never parked in one place. Facial cupping shouldn’t leave bruises. However, bruising can occur if the cup is left in the same place for too long. Reese says that discoloration can occur in as little as five seconds, so make sure you keep the cup moving.
Types of Facial Cups
There’s certainly a lot of options for cups out there. The ones that I like are glass cups. They’re much smaller. You could see the size. These two sizes depending on where I’m working on the face. But the cups are glass. You don’t wanna leave marks on the person’s face. So they have to be large enough to actually get in there and get that blood and tissue moving, but not so big that they’re too big for the face. If the cup is too hard to squeeze, then it could be very difficult.
Cupping therapy sets are available in diverse configurations, and their characteristics can vary depending on the fabrication material, suction method, and intended application, as listed below.
Fabrication material: Cupping sets can be crafted from various materials, including glass, plastic, silicone, or bamboo. Specific cupping therapy techniques may necessitate the application of a viscous fluid, such as oil or water-based lubricant, to protect the patient's skin from the cup's edge during the suction process.
Suction method: Contemporary cupping sets may utilize a vacuum pump to create the suction (manual cupping) or rely on electrical devices (electrical cupping) to regulate the pressure.
Specific use: Cupping sets can be customized for various therapeutic purposes to address particular ailments or body areas. For instance, cupping sets may be designed for sports-related injuries, facial rejuvenation, lymphatic drainage, or general relaxation.
Moreover, cupping sets may vary in size and shape to accommodate different body areas and patient preferences. Some cupping sets include multiple cup sizes that enable practitioners to customize the treatment based on the patient's requirements.
Smaller cups work best on sensitive areas, including under your eyes and eyebrows, along your nose and T-zone, and around your mouth. Larger cups work best on larger areas of skin, such as your forehead, cheeks, and along your jaw.
Choosing a Practitioner
You're most likely to get cupping from a massage therapist or an acupuncturist. Make sure that your provider/therapist is cleaning and sterilizing the equipment they use between sessions, or using disposable cups and blades. You can find a facial cupping provider by doing a simple Google search for local acupuncturists who specialize in facial rejuvenation.
As with any treatment, you should set up a consultation before your first session. Take this time to ask about their credentials, where they were trained in facial acupuncture, and how long they’ve been practicing this specific modality.
Facial Cupping at Home
Yes, you can give yourself cupping therapy. Many kits are available containing plastic, silicone, or glass cups. Please do not buy glass cups, as these need to be heated to be applied and are too dangerous for beginners to use. Stick with plastic or silicone. Plastic ones usually come with a pump. Silicone cups are for doing massage cupping, which involves moving the cups around.
You can learn how to use cups by reading books, watching videos, or following instructions online. Let your doctor know you intend to try this therapy, as you might have a health problem that could make cupping a bad idea. Talk with your doctor before you start cupping or any other type of complementary medicine. Talk extensively with your cupping therapist before you try it.
General guidelines suggest these steps:
- Wash your face and gently pat dry.
- Lightly massage your face with your hands to release preliminary tension.
- Although face oils are optional, applying a light layer to your skin may help decrease your risk of bruising as you move the cups.
- Start by applying a small cup to your chin and around your mouth.
- Leave the cup in place for few seconds and then move upward to a new area.
- Swap smaller cups for larger cups as needed, like when you get to your forehead.
- Continue until you have successfully cupped all desired areas.
- If you used a face oil, cleanse your face and pat dry.
- Otherwise, use a splash of warm water to reopen your pores.
- Continue with your beauty or skin care routine.
The Natural Lift Signature Facial Cupping Treatment
The Signature Natural Lift combines the healing powers of facial cupping, facial massage, acupressure, lymphatic drainage, and a custom hand-mixed plant-powered mask to feed nutrients directly to your skin. Your service will end with a hydrating mist, treatment serum, moisturizer, SPF, and lip conditioner. The Natural Lift is cumulative, each treatment builds upon the next. Therefore, it is recommended in a weekly series of 4-12 for optimal results.
During our first session, we will wake up your facial muscles, increase blood circulation, and kickstart your lymphatic system. With facial cupping, consistency is key. For long-lasting results, and to boost collagen production, it is important to receive treatment consistently. A minimum series of 3 sessions, one week apart to start is ideal, with a series of 6 highly recommended.
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